Cellphone Service Without Signing on the Dotted LinePosted: 08-Feb-2013 [Source: New York Times]

[More and more people are rejecting the subsidy/contract model and are going with pre-paid phone plans.]

Alina Tugend -- "According to figures from Sprint about wireless use across all carriers, the number of no-contract cellphone customers is expected to rise to 30 percent of the share of total wireless customers in 2015, from 18 percent in 2008. It is already about 28 percent."

No-contract phones — or prepaid, which is essentially the same thing — have been around for quite some time, but most consumers thought they were “for people who couldn’t afford a better phone or couldn’t pass a credit check,” said Jayne Wallace, a spokeswoman for the Sprint Prepaid Group, which was formed in 2010. Sprint owns Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile, both of which offer no-contract phones.

The Great Recession shook things up, though, as people started looking at where they could cut back on monthly bills — and began to investigate new cellphone options. At the same time, good phones were getting cheaper."